THE MUSIC SALON: classical music, popular culture, philosophy and anything else that catches my fancy...

Sunday, June 26, 2011

The Music of Firefly

Firefly is a science fiction series created by Joss Whedon that sadly got canceled midway through its first season. DVD sales were so large that a feature film, Serenity, was made following up on the series. Alas, it failed to score at the box office so fourteen episodes plus the feature is all we have. I say 'alas' because in my books this is the best science fiction ever filmed. One reason is the extremely effective use of music. Here are the opening credits:

The first thing to notice is how utterly different this is from other theme music to science fiction shows. This is a simple country song with guitar and fiddle. No bombastic orchestra or synthesizer noodling. Joss Whedon wrote the lyrics and music for the song. But there were a lot of different kinds of music used in the show. Here is a scene from a ballroom dance in the episode Shindig:

The music is the Alla danza tedesca from the String Quartet op 130 by Beethoven. Here is an interview with Greg Edmonson, composer of the music for the series (though not the feature film). Here is a link to the CD of the soundtrack.

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About Me

Born in Alberta, Canada, grew up on Vancouver Island, lived a decade in Montreal, resident in Mexico since 1998. Degrees in music from McGill University in performance, post-graduate study in musicology. From 2008 to 2011 I wrote a large set of songs for voice and guitar on poems by Robert Graves, Wallace Stevens, Victor Hugo, Rilke, Aristophanes, Anna Akhmatova, Roethke, Li Po, John Donne and Philip Larkin.
Catalogue includes two suites for solo guitar, chamber music for violin, viola and guitar, two guitars and harpsichord and other combinations including three pieces for guitar orchestra published by Guitarissimo of Stockholm, Sweden. In the last couple of years I have focused on music for orchestra and so far I have written an overture and three symphonies.
Publications include two books of pedagogy for guitar, one on technique and the other on playing Bach, which included eight new transcriptions for guitar.
Four Pieces for Violin and Guitar are available from The Avondale Press: http://www.theavondalepress.com/catalog/four-pieces/
In April 2015 a new piece for violin and piano, "Chase" was premiered in a concert at Belles Artes in San Miguel de Allende, Gto. Mexico.